La Place. Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace (1749–1827), the great astronomer and mathematician.
Lavoisier. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794), the founder of modern chemistry: he was guillotined in the Revolution.
Cuvier. Leopold Christian Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier, better known as Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), the great zoologist and reformer in Education.
Houdon. Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828), one of the greatest of French sculptors. Of his statue of St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian order, Pope Clement XIV. said that ‘it would speak were it not for the Carthusian rule of silence.’
[121]. Laborious foolery. Cf. vol. VIII. p. 554, Hazlitt’s letter to The Morning Chronicle on Modern Comedy.
Horace Vernet. Emile Jean Horace Vernet (1789–1863), the ‘Paul Delaroche of military painting.’
[122]. Good haters. See vol. VII. The Plain Speaker, note to p. [180].
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CHAPTER VI
October 8. Numbered VI. in the newspaper, but see ante, note to chapter V.